A blanket, a fleece sweatshirt, and a cup of coffee

Those are the things that helped me get out of bed this morning (see title).

It's currently about 9:30, and I've been awake for two hours. For those of you who have been reading my blog for a long time, you know that me getting up at 7:30 is the exception, not the norm — I am a horrible morning person, not to mention I have an uncanny ability to sleep right through my alarms.

This morning, though, I had a very good reason to be getting up so early: I had to check for an email from a client who lives on the East Coast, and is therefore two hours ahead of me. He had emailed me Monday to ask if I could do some major revisions on an article I wrote for him last week. (And, I should add, he paid me very generously for the last-minute revisions.)

My client needed the completed article this morning so that he could send his newsletter to the printer. I sent him the completed revisions last night, but I needed to check this morning and make sure he didn't need anything else before the copy was due. That meant getting up when the day began in his time zone.

As it turned out, my client didn't need anything else, but I'm glad I got up early: I've gotten a lot done this morning. So far, I've gotten a lot of work email and other administrative tasks out of the way, updated a couple of my more neglected blogs, and read my Wednesday newsletters. And I still have hours left to spend on billable work!

It's going to be a productive day — I can already tell!

I'm on fire!

I have had a very productive — and lucrative — week so far! It's great to feel like I'm "back" after working less due to my stable duties during July and August and just in general feeling unproductive all summer. No more problems with feeling I'm taking too long to complete assignments!

Today was the exception, however: I spent pretty much the entire day at the new barn. Hopefully the day off won't kill my productive streak!

Writerlance update

Quite a while back, I blogged on a complaint about Writerlance. Writers were having their account balances disappear, and one writer reported that her account was deleted after she complained. Then the site went down. When I tried emailing Writerlance, my emails bounced.

Later, after the site came back up, I read on a discussion thread that the site had changed owners.

Six months later, the new owner of Writerlance has finally deigned to email its members:

Hello Writerlance user,

This is Michael Santiago the new owner of Writerlance.com. Durning the past 3 months we had some major issues with the previous owner still having access to our site and causing major problems.

We have finally regained total access to writerlance and can now resume business as usual. There are several members that have NOT received their writing fees and or been able to deposit money.

This needs to be straightened out asap so members can get paid for the work that has been done. We are reviewing pending payments now and will send out payments as soon as we can.

If you have any questions at all, please email:
websmartpro at gmail dot com

All other emails related to the site aren't currently working.

Thank you and we hope to serve you better in the future.

Best Regards,
Michael Santiago

I'm glad Writerlance has finally fixed the problems and sent out an update, and I sympathize with the problems they were having with the former owner, but come on — don't you think it would have been good business policy to email members a little sooner?

In any case, if you lost your account balance with Writerlance, use the email address above (disguised to make it harder for spammers to pick up on my blog) and see about getting your money back!

Lights, camera, ACTION!

After two weeks of trying to negotiate a payment plan, my deadbeat client failed to pay so much as a dime by the deadline, which was on Friday. Therefore, my biggest item on my to-do list today is to start filing reports and complaints.

It's a tedious, intimidating task, and I don't think I'm going to even try to get it all done today. I'll lose my drive if I allow myself to become too overwhelmed.

More on the subject soon. Right now I need to focus all my energies on writing these complaints.

Blowing off steam

I was really upset earlier this evening over some emails my deadbeat client sent (the deadline is now two days away and I think he's feeling the pinch, so he's stepping up his intimidation efforts).

Unfortunately, I have a lot of work over the next few days — some end-of-the-month deadlines for one of my bigger clients — so I couldn't afford to not work, even as upset as I was.

As it turned out, though, my anger actually helped me to get more done (usually it's just the opposite). In fact, I felt so invigorated that I worked quite late (as you can see), and got quite a bit done. And working, in turn, helped me to blow off some steam.

I can't wait to be able to tell you guys about my deadbeat client. Stay tuned — he doesn't seem like he's going to pay up, so I'm sure I'll be telling all very soon!

Desk, what desk?

It occurred to me that when I get tired of working from the couch, I might have a difficult time returning to my desk, which has turned into a paperwork dumping ground in my absence:



This is after just over a week of doing all my freelancing work from the couch. My cats have figured out that I'm not using my desk regularly anymore, and have taken to sitting on it to look through the blinds (something I normally discourage them from doing).

I'll have to reclaim my desk soon, I suppose, before my cats take up permanent residence there...

My new place of employment

One of my favorite things about being a freelance writer is that I can work wherever I want or need to at the moment. For instance, right now I'm eating lunch, so the kitchen table is my workstation of the moment.

Although I have an office and a desk, I tend to get tired of that setup pretty quickly. Next to my desk I have a comfortable vintage rocker that I sometimes work from, but lately I've been rejecting my office entirely to work from the couch.

I don't usually choose to work from the couch, but right now I'm really enjoying it. It's not as comfy as my overstuffed rocker, but I have more room to spread out — I work with my feet up on the coffee table and my papers on either side of me. Add in a comfy knit blanket, a snack and a water bottle crammed into the cushions so that they stay upright, and the blinds open so that the sunlight streams in the window, and maybe you'll see why I find my new place of employment so appealing!